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The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation.

Davis, David Brion (author).

The dehumanizing of enslaved Africans is the “problem of slavery” on which Davis focuses in the conclusion of his trilogy on slavery in Western culture, analyzing the psychology and immorality of slavery from antiquity to modern times. Davis explores the period from the Haitian Revolution, when enslaved Africans liberated themselves (triumphing over the mighty British and French militaries), to the Thirteenth Amendment and the end of American slavery, if not American racism. Haiti’s slave rebellion inspired American freedmen and slaves and horrified whites with the prospect of a population determined to be free and possibly vengeful for their dehumanization. In between, the abolition movements in the U.S. and elsewhere challenged the very concept of slavery in “free” and democratic societies even as the growth of scientific racism and the colonization movement highlighted the complexity of liberating a people not exactly welcome as free on American shores. Davis, a Pulitzer Prize winner, explores the underappreciated role of former slaves in the push for abolition and the influence of religion in the debate about the morality of enslavement. This is a well-researched and broad historical and global analysis of the complex motives and actions on all fronts, highlighting the transcontinental tension between efforts by white society to dehumanize and the fight by freedmen and slaves for freedom, full humanity, and citizenship.